Wolfsdorf Newsletter – December, 2017

Wolfsdorf Rosenthal LLP Ranked “Tier 1 Immigration Law Firm” by U.S. News & World Report – Best Law Firms

Wolfsdorf Rosenthal LLP has been ranked as a 2018 Tier 1 Immigration Law Firm Nationwide and for the Los Angeles Region by U.S. News-Best Lawyers® Best Law Firms.

Bernard P. Wolfsdorf, Managing Partner of Wolfsdorf Rosenthal LLP and past President of the 14,000-member American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), has been named the Best Lawyers® 2018 “Immigration Lawyer of the Year” for Los Angeles.

Wolfsdorf Rosenthal LLP attorneys have a long-standing history of being recognized by Best Lawyers. The firm is honored to have the following attorneys also profiled in the 2018 edition of The Best Lawyers in America in Immigration Law:

Avi Friedman – Named “Lawyer of the Year” in 2014 and 2016 for Los Angeles

Managing Partner, Bernard Wolfsdorf will be leading a panel discussion at AILA’s EB-5 Investor Summit on December 8, 2017 in Las Vegas. He will discuss devising strategies specific to Chinese investors including solutions for the EB-5 waiting line, redeployment, job creation in an era of backlogs, age-out issues, and issues at the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou.

Vivian Zhu, Partner at the firm’s Los Angeles office, will also be speaking at AILA’s EB-5 Investor Summit on a panel about Advanced Source of Funds Issues. She will be sharing her insight on documenting an investor’s lawful source of funds, tackling complex path of funds issues, and successfully responding to common concerns raised by USCIS in RFEs and NOIDs.

David Fullmer to Host LACBA Immigration and Nationality Law Section CLE on Labor Certification and PERM

David Fullmer, Partner at the firm’s Los Angeles office and Chair of the LA County Bar Association’s Immigration Section, will be hosting a panel on “Hitting a Moving Target…BALCA Cases, Updates and Hot Topics.” The expert panelists will cover critical drafting nuances for labor certifications, traps in the process, legal updates, and two special topics: Special Handling labor certifications for colleges and university professors/scholars; and Schedule A, Group II Exceptional Ability cases in the science and arts. The panel will take place on December 16, 2017, at Los Angeles County Bar Association, 1055 W. 7th St. Suite 2700, Los Angeles, CA 90017. This panel will provide 3 hours of CLE credit.

Immigration Updates

DHS to Terminate TPS Designations for Haiti in July 2019

Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, Elaine Duke, recently announced the termination of the temporary protected status (TPS) designation for Haiti with a delayed effective date of 18 months “to allow for an orderly transition before the designation terminates on July 22, 2019.”

The DHS statement said, “Since the 2010 earthquake, the number of displaced people in Haiti has decreased by 97 percent. Significant steps have been taken to improve the stability and quality of life for Haitian citizens, and Haiti is able to safely receive traditional levels of returned citizens. Haiti has also demonstrated a commitment to adequately prepare for when the country’s TPS designation is terminated.”

Haitians with TPS must reapply for employment authorization documents to continue working legally in the United States until the end of the extension period.

Following lawsuits by the counties of San Francisco and Santa Clara, California, Judge William H. Orrick, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, ruled against a provision of the Trump administration’s executive order issued in January 2017 to block federal funds from “sanctuary jurisdictions.”

The court said that the Constitution vests spending powers in Congress, not the President, so the executive order “cannot constitutionally place new conditions on federal funds.” Further, the court noted, the Tenth Amendment “requires that conditions on federal funds be unambiguous and timely made; that they bear some relation to the funds at issue; and that they not be unduly coercive.” Federal funding that bears no meaningful relationship to immigration enforcement “cannot be threatened merely because a jurisdiction chooses an immigration enforcement strategy of which the President disapproves,” the court said. Because the executive order violates the separation of powers doctrine and deprives the counties of their Tenth and Fifth Amendment rights, the court granted the counties’ motions for summary judgment and permanently enjoined the defunding and enforcement provisions of the executive order.

USCIS Announces Caps for Final Three Fiscal Years of CNMI Transitional Worker Program

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced the number of visas the agency will grant for the last three fiscal years of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI)-Only Transitional Worker (CW-1) program. The caps until the end of the program are 9,998 (FY 2018); 4,999 (FY 2019); and 4,999 (FY 2020, until December 31, 2019).

USCIS “encourages employers to file petitions for CW-1 workers as early as possible within 6 months of the requested employment start date. Please note, however, that USCIS will reject a petition if it is filed more than six months in advance.”